At Hulu, we are relentless about creating beautiful, intuitive and engaging experiences that help you find and enjoy popular current season TV shows whenever you want, on whatever device you want. Which is why we are so proud to announce the Hulu Plus app is now available on one of the newest operating systems: Windows 8.

Our team has been heads down building a gorgeous new Hulu Plus app that is optimized for the Windows user interface. The app will be available to the general public on October 26th, but those of you with early access to Windows 8 can check out the Hulu Plus app now. You’ll see we’ve included a few new goodies.

The new Hulu Plus app leverages core Microsoft design principles with our touch-optimized experience. The UI is simple and clean and puts the most relevant content first, creating a visually immersive experience in the most engaging way.

Launching the app presents you with an immersive panorama of your favorite shows and episodes laid out in a wide canvas. Check out this quick video tutorial:

The Hulu Plus app uses a tile-based view common to the new Windows UI. This will make it easy for you to find the latest episode of the shows you want to watch, but also to discover new ones.

When using Hulu Plus, we know you care about getting to “Family Guy” or “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” as quickly as possible. The Hulu Plus app on Windows puts key features into the app bar to keep the focus on content. You can access the app bar by swiping from the top of the screen, or right-clicking your mouse on the empty space in the app.

Now let’s take a look at what to do with a show you really like. Perhaps you want to know how to share clips. Or how to watch the latest episode of a show. Or how to add something to your queue. Or whether KITT was the Godfather of Cylons. We can’t answer that last one, but if you touch an image and gently slide it down and up, or right-click the image with your mouse, a menu of options will appear and let you share, add, and play anything you’d like.

If you select a show, you’ll get an extra bonus: a little button with the label “Pin.” Pinning gives Hulu Plus subscribers one-touch access to their favorite shows directly from the Start screen.

In the future, as new episodes of that show air on Hulu Plus, you’ll see its images appear on the icon without ever starting the app; tapping it will get you what you want to watch faster than you can say “Family Guy.”

“That’s great…,” you say. “But I bet your app won’t let me watch ‘Gossip Girl‘ while using another app to write an email proving Fermat’s Last Theorem… at the same time!” Fortunately, we’ve considered this very common scenario and are happy to let you know that our app supports something known as “Snap View,” which allows you to watch Hulu Plus in a small screen while using another app in the larger screen. (And you can switch the two by dragging the slider). To try this, play back a video and drag your finger from the top middle to the center of the screen, then to the far left (or to the far right). With a mouse, click at the top of the screen and drag the app to the side to snap it.

Hulu Plus will be preloaded on select Acer and Sony Windows 8 computers, and will be available for download on any Windows 8 device through the Windows Store. You can see all Hulu Plus enabled devices here. Give it a spin and let us know what you think!

This entry was posted on Monday, October 22nd, 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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Thanks for posting. I’m sorry for the confusion, but a Hulu Plus account is not required to use Hulu on your desktop. While a Hulu Plus account lets you watch more TV shows and films, you can still use a free Hulu account to watch certain videos we offer to free subscribers.

Just installed Windows 8 and Hulu Plus was one of my first apps installed (of course). A bit disappointed though as I can’t watch anything!!! Every time I click on a tv show the app closes and just goes back to the start screen. I’m trying to remove and re-add it now, but this is a fresh install of Windows 8 and Hulu Plus so I’m not very hopeful… :-(

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Keyboard navigation for Windows 8 app on a PC is atrocious. The arrow keys barely work at all and its impossible to get to your queue or subscriptions without a mouse. The tile interface is perfect for keyboard navigation. This needs to be fixed or I might as well just use a browser. I also agree with Brian York above.

Totally off topic so feel free to ignore, but it today both my Sony Smart BluRay and my Samsung Smart TV started displaying ALL my Hulu subscriptions, even shows from USA like White Collar that are not currently available on TVs and Mobile Devices. The irritating thing is that currently it just fills up my subscription list with lots of shows I can’t watch – cuz when I click on one no episodes are available. Is this an error or preparations for new agreements with the networks?

When viewing shows Season and Episode number should show up as a rollover on the image or under the thumbnail. This info is nice to have so if watching a show in order when I watch a show I know that i’m watching the next episode. Name of the episode has less meaning to me in that way than the season and episode # and also the windows 8 app isn’t removing viewed items from queue. With that in mind I also miss the season and episode number showing up when watching a video from the website. Thanks for the quick release of the windows 8 app though!! It looks wonderful!

watching on apple TV. everything has an “error occured” language. have been trying for over 1/2 hour. REALLY?? i’m getting pretty fed up. Does anyone at Hulu actually care about the service we’re getting out here?

This is only place I seem top be able to leave a comment/ feedback for HULU. I get to listen to two ads while watching one and have lost the navigation bar at the bottom of the screen. If this is windows 8…well there are other places on the net to watch this stuff.

Yet another WinRT Video app that doesn’t make use of Windows’ PlayTo feature. Seriously guys… it’s only a few lines of code, and is what can set any native WinRT app apart from other devices and the website by allowing you to control from your tablet/desktop/laptop but play on the TV via any DLNA device. Actually without this, I might as well just use the website.